Doctors to EPA: You’re Full of…errr…Pollution

By now, you’ve probably heard that, if the EPA had it’s way, they’d shut down every coal power plant in the country and replace it with tenderly-gardened patchouli fields and useless, circular solar panels that hippies will dance around in the moonlight, chanting and wearing nothing but copies of the Clean Air Act. Despite what President Obama might have said at this morning’s press conference of course, recent EPA actions along these lines will have a disastrous effect on the economy as America’s major industries struggle to retrofit their plants and meet outrageous EPA demands. Most plants who found the “updates” necessary to come into compliance with Lisa Jackson’s edicts will end up closing rather than going deep into debt, laying off potentially thousands of Americans.

But that’s pretty much what the EPA wants. No more oil, gas and coal means that failing alternative energy industries and green energy sources will finally have the “level playing field” they need to compete, and all of us peons will finally be saved from the horrific health menace that is air pollution. Our lives will be extended. Our lungs will rejoice. Our health care will be….ummm….more expensive?

Medical professionals and U.S. Reps. Paul Broun, Larry Bucshon, Michael Burgess, Bill Cassidy, John Fleming, Phil Gingrey and Paul Gosar have written a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urging her to delay implementation of the proposed Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule (MACT), which imposes stringent new standards on coal-fueled power plants.

Why this particular policy? Well, the Utility MACT rule is expected to cause widespread shutdowns of power plants across the country.: The letter signers state that the proposed rule will actually hurt public health by raising electricity prices and thus health care costs, therefore negating any supposed longer-term health benefits.

Awesome. Not only is your energy going to be more expensive, because the EPA wants to shut down electricity production in your general vicinity, but now your health care costs are going to go up because hospitals and care centers, which basically rely on electricity to power lifesaving devices, lights, laundry and a host of other necessary things, will be forced to also pay higher energy costs. Hospitals and doctors who will now pay more for services will inevitably pass that cost on to consumers. And if Obamacare holds up, on to taxpayers.

Now, typically, the administration would, in a case like this, circle the wagons, hire some pre-paid “independent advisers” and attempt to convince the medical community that the EPA will not, in fact, cost them an additional arm and leg. And that would be the case except that, even as the administration attempts to court friends in the American Lung Association among others, to testify that a major increase in enforcement of the Clean Air Act will, in fact, save everyone’s life and provide us all with individual unicorns, the EPA is busy pulling the rug out from under them. Remember those asthma inhalers that no one was ever going to need again? Well, it turns out you may not have a choice. According to the EPA they’re a major Clean Air Act enemy.

Asthma patients who rely on over-the-counter inhalers will need to switch to prescription-only alternatives as part of the federal government’s latest attempt to protect the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday patients who use the epinephrine inhalers to treat mild asthma will need to switch by Dec. 31 to other types that do not contain chlorofluorocarbons, an aerosol substance once found in a variety of spray products.

The action is part of an agreement signed by the U.S. and other nations to stop using substances that deplete the ozone layer, a region in the atmosphere that helps block harmful ultraviolet rays from the Sun.

But the switch to a greener inhaler will cost consumers more. Epinephrine inhalers are available via online retailers for around $20, whereas the alternatives, which contain the drug albuterol, range from $30 to $60.

So, yes, the EPA would like to prevent lung disease by putting major American industries out of business. Which is good, because the EPA also won’t let you have an inhaler in the off chance their experiment in reducing greenhouse gases doesn’t work. Which makes you wonder if any of these people have absolutely any idea of what they’re doing.